Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 12:14 am by admin
It is almost midnight now…
How can the writing on one piece of music go so well, and the next one be totally stalled out?
One of my seven new pieces is called “Tangie L’Orange”, named after the cat we feed on our front porch whenever she graces us with her presence. She is the sweetest (and coolest) cat, and “her” piece is rockin’ and rollin’, so to speak. As I play through what I have of it so far, I can see her running down the sidewalk toward our house, just completely confident of her place in the world and everyone’s responsibility to respect it.
But the other piece….hmmmmm…it has a title, but I am not sure of ITS place in the world yet. I can feel myself “forcing” it a little, and I may have to start over entirely. Very frustrating. Hopefully, tomorrow morning, it will feel good to start it again, but it doesn’t right now. I don’t even think I can salvage one idea from it!
I am considering the beginning of a “do-over” before I quit for the night. Even just a few seconds of material would be a good start. Maybe my mind is more receptive the more tired I get? We’ll see.
And I’ll let you know…
Posted on August 19th, 2009 at 9:19 am by admin
My seven new pieces are shaping up very nicely! Last night, I was up until 1 a.m. adding to each of them. Some almost seemed to write themselves, while others trudged unwillingly toward the addition of a new motif. It’s amazing that, this evening, these pieces could “flip-flop” in their ease.
It is tough to carve out creative time consistently. Years ago, I often wrote late at night, so I have been trying that again at this point. It’s working well….I am convinced that my husband and I have seen every “Law And Order” episode ever made, and we have watched everyone’s misery on “48 Hours Mystery” long enough.
My teaching schedule has really started to fill up in one studio, while I work on building my Orlando studio. I love hearing my students play Rachmaninov, Ravel, Brahms, and Chopin. They are mostly teenagers now, so we get to have great, insightful conversations about using the pedal as they would the gas pedal of a car; and how they can resolve technical problems by changing where energy is focused. They know so much more than they sometimes think they do. The piano is the compilation of life principles, laid out under our fingers and waiting to live.
Speaking of waiting to live, I hear a motif calling my name…..talk to you soon.
Posted on August 17th, 2009 at 9:30 am by admin
Hello everyone…
I was actually too tired to blog last night, after starting seven new piano pieces. But these are really special…they will appear on my new CD, and they mark the end of a major dry spell in my creativity.
I have been terrified that, after having had four of my works published, I was somehow going to “forget” the creative process. But truthfully, I think I have revised it, somehow, for the newer version of myself. An artist whom I dated several years ago once told me, “Never fall in love with your own work.” I understand what he meant now — but I might revise that, too: “Have the guts to admit that your work is not exactly loveable.” When it’s 11 p.m., and you have a certain amount of your work you want to complete, it’s easy to say, “This is great…..just what I was trying to say right here….”
I now have a new creative rule (are rules in creativity good?): Put several hours in between listens of my new musical ideas, to see if I can really “go with them”. That’s probably the most honest I can be with myself.
Talk to you tonight….